Change diagnostic delivers measurable improvements in programme effectiveness
Client challenge
Understand how to improve the effectiveness of the programme in a way that is led by their people and driven by data.
What we did
Ran a Change Diagnostic over three months:
- 31 meetings attended
- 172 responses in total (>90% response rate from attendees)
- 74 free text comments (43% of participants)
- Each month we fed back the anonymous findings from the previous month via a user-friendly dashboard along with the actions that were being taken to address the comments
Took minimal time: three minutes at the start of meetings employees already attend.
Because action was being taken against comments there was a measurable improvement in alignment, engagement and sentiment over the three months. People appreciated the transparency shown by leadership in sharing the feedback data.
Top three themes and actions
Theme: More communication from the programme.
Action: Launched fortnightly newsletter to 380+ stakeholders and an intranet site
Theme: Low confidence that the development team could deliver
Action: Interviews with members of the development team featured in every edition of the newsletter to raise their profile and instil confidence in their capability. Ways of working were changed so that members of the developed team worked closely with SMEs and were represented in every workstream.
Theme: People felt that decision-making was poor.
Action: Meetings were re-designed so that the right people were involved and decisions were made in the right forums.
Business outcome
- After the successful pilot the Change Diagnostic continues to run and deliver value to the Programme each month. Leaders use the scores to pick up potential problems early, so they can act on them
- Alignment, engagement and sentiment scores have generally trended upwards. When scores have dipped the free text comments give the reasons why and corrective action can be taken quickly
- The people-led, data-driven approach was so successful that the Change Diagnostic has been rolled out across five other programmes in the portfolio
- Results of the Change Diagnostic are now part of the Programme Reporting to Programme Sponsors
- Programme Leads now have the Change Experience score as part of their personal objectives for the year
The Change Programme Effectiveness diagnostic dashboard
Change diagnostic testimonials
‘It’s been a game changer. It gives us feedback that we can act on quickly.’
Leader
‘We’re seeing our change experience score improve based on action we’re taking. I like that it’s data-led. It gives us something tangible.’
CTO
‘I can share my honest thoughts about the Programme and see what my colleagues are thinking on the dashboard.’
Change Agent
‘The value of our investment in change management can be hard to measure. We can see the impact of our interventions on a monthly basis.’
Change Manager
‘Who can argue with giving your people three minutes a month to tell us what they think.’
Programme Lead
‘It brings measurement to what has been [in the past] opinion only. Head, heart and ‘gut feel’ can now be managed. I think it’s brilliant!’